32nd Sunday of OT Year A Homily

On this 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, our parish community observes its stewardship weekend. Stewardship is “the grateful response of a Christian disciple who recognizes and receives God’s gifts and shares these gifts in love of God and neighbor.” Through the giving of our time, talent, and treasure, we give from what we have received with a spirit of gratitude that helps us to grow in love.

The wise virgins in our Gospel brought flasks of oil, while the foolish virgins brought only their lamps. This oil represents the grace, talents, faith, and blessings that God alone has poured forth into our lives. To be lacking such oil is to attempt to live our life of faith without care for God and neighbor.

These wise virgins did not manufacture their own oil, and so too, everything that we have received is a gift that comes to us from God. Our time, our abilities, our faith, and our material resources are all gifts that we are unable to manufacture for ourselves. Such a realization leads us to understand that what we have is neither infinite nor self-generated, for it is simply a gift that has been entrusted to our care.

Through our stewardship, our gratitude cannot remain passive. Because we are deeply thankful for the gifts that God has given us, we don’t hoard them, but instead allow them to burn brightly in service to Him. When we give of our time, talent, and treasure, we are like those wise virgins who kept their lamps trimmed, burning, and ready.

To the foolish virgins, the wise replied, “No, for there may not be enough for us and you.” Such a response is the realization that we cannot give away our personal relationship with God, nor can we borrow someone else’s charity to make it our own. We must burn our own oil—which is to say that we must be grateful and be found at work with all that God has entrusted to our care.

This week, all registered households will receive a stewardship commitment form in the mail. I ask that you prayerfully fill this form out and return it with you next weekend to Mass to place in the offertory. It is my hope that all will participate in making such a commitment, for we are all called to be good stewards of what has been entrusted to our care.

God is calling you to give of your time and talent. I see that commitment every day in the many parishioners who are involved in our parish ministries. To them I say thank you. Through the commitment of treasure, you assist this parish community in continuing to operate, ensuring that our bills, employees, and ministries may flourish. To those who support us financially I say thank you. Most importantly of all, I ask that you commit to praying for the good of our parish community for this is the most important gift that you can give.

Let us be like those wise virgins who kept their lamps filled and burning brightly. By embracing a life of grateful stewardship, may the Lord find us ready, joyful, and actively sharing His gifts when He comes to welcome us into the heavenly feast.

All Souls Day Homily

Today we observe the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed. When it pertains to those in purgatory, for whom we now pray, it is important to remember that they have already been judged as worthy of Heaven. Purgatory is not a second chance; for it simply cleanses souls who are already been saved and are carrying the residue of sin.

When a person receives God’s forgiveness the eternal guilt of sin is wiped away; that soul is destined for Heaven. Sin also leaves behind a deeper wound known as temporal punishment. This is a disordered attachment to created things rather then God which leaves a spiritual debt of uncorrected harm.

Prayer, fasting, and works of mercy help to realign the soul towards God and to begin to heal those spiritual wounds. Through the concept of indulgences we are not receiving a get out of jail free card, but the remission of temporal punishment brought about from sins which have already been forgiven.

Let us not fail to pray for those souls in Purgatory that they may now be welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven and let us persevere towards that same Heavenly homeland. Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

All Saints Day Homily

Today we observe the Solemnity of All Saints. On such a day we contemplate that “great multitude” spoken of in the Book of Revelation. Such a glimpse emphasizes that sainthood is not restricted to a select few, such as those who have been formally canonized by name, but also includes those now in Heaven whose names we don't know (members of our family and friends).

This celebration causes us to reflect upon the universal call to holiness. Heaven is populated in the words of Revelation by “every nation, race, people, and tongue.” In other words, Heaven is populated by ordinary people from all walks of life who have chosen to accept this universal call to holiness. Through such a pursuit they died in the state of grace and were judged as worthy.

We are told that these are the people “who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb.” In other words, their holiness does not come from self for it comes from being washed, redeemed, and transformed by Christ’s sacrifice.

The saints are not in heaven because they were flawless on their own strength; they are there because they allowed themselves to be forgiven, cleansed, and transformed in Christ’s mercy. Such a transformation is not reserved to clergy, monks, or nuns alone. We are all being invited to undergo such a transformation because such a transformation is necessary for heaven.

We are told in 1 Timothy, “This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth.” This is the desire that God has that we choose to turn our life towards Him and undergo that transformation that points towards such salvation. We have been invited to be numbered among the saints by how we choose to live and order our lives.

The saints, who have gone before us had their own crosses just like each of us. They underwent grief, temptation, persecution, doubt, and physical suffering and yet God’s grace allowed them to be carried through until the end. Their “white robe” is a sign of God’s fidelity and not of their human perfection.

We must notice that these robes were “washed” and not “given.” Salvation is an offer of grace, but grace requires a response. It demands of us repentance, faith, and active cooperation with God. If we are to survive “the time of great distress” we also must treat our faith with such urgency for if not, we risk hearing those words, “I never knew you” and being cast out.

May all the saints intercede for us this day that we may heed the universal call to holiness that has been extended to us. There is great urgency that we embrace such a call and participate with God’s grace in order to undergo daily transformation. This daily transformation is seen in how we live out the Beatitudes- choosing meekness, mercy, and purity over the demands of the world.

All the saints of Heaven, pray for us.

30th Sunday of OT Year A Homily

The scholar’s question was a deliberate theological and legal trap that was set by the Pharisees. By the first century, Jewish rabbis had calculated that the Torah contained 613 individual commandments. If one of these was singled out over the others He would have been accused of diminishing the rest of the Law.

Instead of choosing one law over another, Jesus cites from Deuteronomy, “Love the Lord your God” and pairs it with Leviticus, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Rather than picking one law to invalidate the rest, He reveals the animating principle that exists behind every law in Scripture, authentic love (charity).

It is easy for us to lack such an understanding when it pertains to what is being asked of us through religious practice- attending Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, observing fasts, and keeping moral boundaries. Following laws out of duty or the fear of punishment is a starting point, but is not the ultimate destination.

If rules are kept strictly out of obligation we are treating faith as a routine checklist instead of something that transforms. Through such a disposition of mind resentment grows as we solely see God as a taskmaster or one who lies in wait to catch our mistakes. It is here that minimalism sets in where we strive to do the bare minimum of what is being asked.

We are being asked not simply for compliance, but for internal conversion that must take place. Church laws and moral precepts are not hoops put in the way for us to jump through. They are formative tools that are designed to assist us in moving outward and thus the ability to grow in our ability to love (neighbor, self, and God).

Through Jesus telling His disciples, “I no longer call you servants… I have called you friends” we see a shift in our relationship with God’s law. If done under obligation Law is an outside force that is telling us what to do. If done out of love Law becomes the desire to align ourselves with God’s will which is what sets us free and sends us forth in order to love neighbor, self, and God.

The Church’s ultimate goal for us is that we become so united with God that His love naturally flows through us. Rules give structure to our life, but it is love which gives them life. The invitation that the Gospel makes is to move past seeing rules as a burden that must be carried in order that we may begin to see them leading us directly into a transforming relationship with God.

Let us strive to enter more fully into the life of the Church in order that such transformation may take place within the depths of hearts; leading us towards the liberation that takes place when we enter fully and without reservation into the love that is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

29th Sunday of OT Year A Homily

The Pharisees and Herodians were attempting to catch Jesus in a calculated trap. If He responded “yes” He would look like a traitor to the Jewish people and if He responded “no” He would Have been immediately arrested for sedition against Rome.

He turns their question around by asking a question of His own: “Whose image is this and whose inscription?” This coin bore the face of Caesar and would have read an inscription declaring him to be of divine origin (Tiberius Caesar, Son of the Divine Augustus).

To “repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar” points towards the coin and the image of Caesar that is stamped upon it. Returning a coin to him is reasonable in the confines of secular order. “And to God what belongs to God” which points towards the fact that God claims our entire soul, heart, mind, and body.

As is stated in the Book of Genesis: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” God’s authority is radical because it extends to the very essence of who we are as one who has been created in the image and likeness of God. What do we allow to control us in this life which pulls us away from such a reality?

As Peter and the apostles would answer in the Book of Acts, “We must obey God rather than men.” Such a profession of faith makes it known that the state does not own our human dignity, conscience, or salvation. When civil law contradicts moral law or human rights God must be obeyed over man.

We must guard ourselves against moral relativism that seeps in, causing us to falsely claim that what’s true for you is true for you, instead of morality being informed by truth. At the same time we fail to form our consciences in such truth and are so willing to be kept morality divided by political parties or other ideologies which become our basis for truth. If the Church, in her teachings, says something we disagree with we would rather hide behind cultural norms, biased opinions, and political parties rather than truth.

On moral issues—such as abortion, the nature of marriage, human sexuality, the protection of the poor and vulnerable, care for the environment, and even capital punishment, which has been highlighted recently here in Tennessee—we are willing to trade objective divine truth for political reasons or social comfort. Rather than standing firm on the sacred dignity of every human life, which has been stamped with the image of God from conception to natural death, we selectively embrace only those moral teachings which align with our preference, be it political or social.

Caesar can claim his coins, but it is God who claims our very soul. Let our hearts, consciences, and identities be turned toward God and not the powers of this world which attempt to consume us. “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”